


gasping at glimpses of gentle true spirit

by chalmskinn



Series: it's been a long time coming [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1960s, Alternate Universe - 1970s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Vietnam, Alternate Universe - War, Dreams, Drowning, Hospitals, Injury, M/M, Vietnam War, War, sea creatures - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 13:20:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3383042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chalmskinn/pseuds/chalmskinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He is broken from his water hypnosis, black hair latching to his neck and the contours of his face, where he is gaunt and skeletal - a servant of Death, his prince, her prince, immortal to the universe.</i>
</p><p>Life, death, pain, and time are all subjective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	gasping at glimpses of gentle true spirit

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Crosby, Stills and Nash's 'Helplessly Hoping'; sequel to 'a fair wind' and 'sing in silent harmony' - so i recommend having read them before goin' ahead with this!!!

He is blissfully drowning. Green, inky water wisps like silk sheets around his pale body and he is warm, and he is heavy, and he is sinking. His lungs become weighty sacks of water, and his feet are white blurs, kicking loosely and fluidly. Sound is dull, but he can feel the slow thump of his weak heart in his chest, and smell the metallic tang of copper or rust or blood, spinning red ribbons in the green expanse, a never ending stream into the infinity of the deep, deep, deepness.

He must have been sailing and fallen, fallen overboard and sank, sinking, to the bottom of the dark watery abyss, to re-emerge as a beautiful, swollen corpse - content and peaceful, with the dead eyes of a god and hands that have touched the eternal, metaphysical realm.

He would be buried in black, his hands gloved in a soft black leather; his face covered with a white chiffon sheet to obscure the discolouration of his sallow, sunken skin. They would play Saint-Saëns at the service. His coffin would be lined with white satin, and he would have Blake carved into the dark mahogany lid. His mother would weep. People would move on.

Life is a doomed bark in a storm, with the fate of a quiet sinking - a notion unstoppable, and a prophecy untold. The winds blow and the ships sail and there is a choice offered as to whether one departs or remains a passenger on the cruel journey the good ship Life offers.

Commandeer the ship, sail the vessel, and withstand the waves.

He is a sea snake. He poisons and captivates as he winds through the waters, the tropical corals contrasting against his pale and dark body; his scales are tapestries depicting a war, a life lived too fast, and too slow, too many regrets, too many deaths; sorrow, lust, and love. Or perhaps he is an oarfish, beached in the shallows, sinking ships, reflecting silver and gold and red in the pale lights of the Californian sun: sea serpent and krill killer.

_I am a sea creature._

The water vibrates and ripples, and two faint blasts from a horn swell in his ear drums, and he is kicking again, and his fingers rise from the surface, and the warm water drips down the porcelain digits in icy tracks, and he is broken from his water hypnosis, black hair latching to his neck and the contours of his face, where he is gaunt and skeletal - a servant of Death, his prince, her prince, immortal to the universe.

_Do not sail past me._

The wake drags him along, and the salty foam cleanses and absolves him of his immoral and impure thoughts and deeds. The horn blasts again and he is thrust underwater, and he kicks, and he winds, and he is dragged down, gripped by force greater than his knowledge. He struggles. Long weeds bind and pull at his legs and his arms wave and tread, and he is tired. He is so tired. But he is awake. His eyes burn, and he can feel the blood pumping fast through the tiny capillaries contrasting violent bloody murderous red against the stark white of his eyeballs, and he just wants to blink. Blink away the struggle, close his eyes on the water, and be at one with the decomposing matter on the soft bed of the sea. Let the crabs and the octopus suck and eat his rotting flesh. Leave only bones.

He is awake.

His eyes are closed. The room is sticky, humid droplets of his sweat drip down the gauzy mosquito net, and they land on his tissue thin sheet, a yellowing, greying sheet that is wound around his long legs, that stops at his pale ankle. His single pillow is damp, and he breathes in.

Burning flesh, metallic blood, smoke and sweat fills the hazy air, and his eyelashes break their bond and his eyes open - it is as if sand lubricates the socket, and he connects his green gaze to a blue stare in the next bed to him. There is no life in the eyes. Pinpricks of pupils and bitten, bloody lips. Unkempt hair, a clenched jaw, and a seeping bandage on what remains of his left arm. His undamaged right hand clutches onto the dog tags around his neck, and Loki turns his head to face the ceiling.

He wants to deafen himself from the dull screaming of men, women and children. Their pain is not his pain. His pain is his own, and he does not want it tainted. His pain is subjective and he does not want to compare it to anybody else’s. The dressing on his stomach is soaked through, and he doesn’t complain, despite the tepid, damp, and oozing wound festering on his body. He inches his hand down to the tape attaching the square cotton pad to his abdomen, and picks.

“Don’t.”

He turns his head to the lifeless-eyed man to his right, stilling his hand. He purses his lips, and raises his eyebrow. “Nurses are fuckin’ crazy, man. They won’t change your fucking bandages or dressings, but they will make you regret tryin’ to do their fuckin’ job for them.” Loki nods slowly, the Brooklyn accent ringing in his ears, and he inches his hand back up, pulling his sweat soaked shirt back down his torso.

He closes his lids, and parts his dry mouth, inhaling the cigarette fumes from the left of him; and blond hair, thin lips, and a sandy beard fills his vision, thick fingers passing a smoking cigarette to slender digits, Loki’s ebony head resting in the dip of the shoulder to neck, breathing in the smoke, the salt, and the rain of Thor’s golden skin. Thor is a raindrop falling into a deep ocean - he is the ocean, all encompassing, almighty; yet he is also the cloud, the cloud that births the ocean, feeds and fuels, always in motion, eternal and timeless. Loki may fade, but Thor is infinite, a brightly burning light in contrast to Loki’s faltering, slowly self-consuming flame. He prays that nobody will quite yet snuff him out.

He turns to his right, and the blue eyes are still staring, “Do you think we can go home?”

“You’d fuckin’ hope, wouldn’t you.” A humourless laugh echoes in the void of the room.

He places his hand on the warm, bloody dressing tying him to the bed, and it pulses.

He closes his eyes, and concentrates on the pulsing of his wound.

He is on the sweat dampened chest of his brother, listening to the pound of his heart, and he hears his own pulse in the left of his neck, and he is content, and he is dulled from all pain. All that matters is the heartbeat, strong for now.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm obsessed with the idea of drowning and the sea at the moment, man. Also more inspired by Michael Cimino's 'The Deer Hunter' than Apocalypse Now, this time - surprisingly.
> 
> I spent ages formatting this, bruh!!!
> 
> Thank you for reading, me loves :*


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